1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to fishing generally, and particularly to an improvement in fishhook design to allow the fishhook to be more easily removed from the fish with less damage to the mouth and other parts of the fish.
2. Related Art
This hook is designed for catch-and-release purposes. Catch-and-release has been practiced for many years. It is a practice in which fisherman catch a fish and then release it to preserve the fish stock, because they do not like fish, or to comply with local size and limit rules.
This style of fishing requires a hook which will hold the fish and be easily removed as well while damaging the fish minimally. These requirements are not met by the predominant hook used today: the barb hook. The barb hook holds the fish but damages it when a release is attempted. The alternative (to allow a fish's release) has mostly been a barbless hook. However, this design allows the fish to easily escape as no fishing-retaining means (a barb) is provided on the spear. Thus, a fisherman has little choice when using a barbless hook if he or she wishes to keep some fish and release others.
Fishhooks consist of an eye, a shank, a bend, and a spear. The structure resembles a letter "J" with the eye at the top of the long leg of the J, the shank forming the long leg of the J, the bend at the bottom of the J, and the spear forming the short leg of the J. The point is located within the spear, and is measured from the sharp top at the end of a hook back to the tip of the hook barb.
A conventional barb can injure a fish when release is attempted. Others have attempted to address this negative aspect of the barb by use of a mechanical element covering the barb during removal. U.S. Pat. No. 2,816,392 to Goldberg describes such a hook. The hook is complicated as it has many parts and would therefore be expensive. Furthermore, it does not fully address the problem with the barbed hook design as the hook still has a barb which can cause damage to a fish.
Another approach uses a movable barb retained in the hook which rotates into an engaged or disengaged position. Like the Goldberg design above, this design uses moving parts and would, therefore, be expensive and more difficult to use in that a fisherman would have to reach in the fish and rotate the part before removing the hook. U.S. Pat. No. 4,757,634 to Meixell. Such parts may also lock up and not move easily after repeated use.
Another approach is to take a standard barbed fish-hook and press the pointed end of the barb back to the spear. This leaves a bump that is not uniform, can still catch the mouth of the fish, thereby hurting it, could damage the hook, and hurt the fisherman.
The last approach described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,685,108 to Lepage is a fishhook that has two depressions with sharp leading edges in the wire of the hook. The problem with this design is that the tip is perceived as weak by the fisherman. There is thus a need for a fishhook that: (1) can effectively hold a fish; (2) does minimal damage to the fish; (3) is easily and safely used; (4) causes no real or perceived structural weakness to the hook; and (5) allows the fisherman the choice of either releasing or keeping a fish.